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25 Cards in this Set

The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary where fresh and salt water mix. It is a very fertile place for things that grow.

Why is the Chesapeake Bay unique?

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest of 130 estuaries in the United States.

What are the seven 'states' in the Chesapeake Bay watershed?

The watershed includes parts of six states (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia) and all of the District of Columbia.

What are the dimensions of the Chesapeake Bay?

The Bay is about 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, MD to Norfolk, VA. The Bay's width ranges from 3.4 miles near Aberdeen, MD to 35 miles near the mouth of the Potomac River.

Where does the water come from in the Chesapeake Bay?

The Bay receives about half of its water volume from the Atlantic Ocean. The rest drains into the Bay from an enormous 64,000 square-mile drainage basin or watershed.

How much water is in the Chesapeake Bay?

The Chesapeake holds more than 18 trillion gallons of water.

How many rivers and streams flow into the Bay?

There are about 150 major rivers and streams in the Chesapeake drainage basin.

Where does most of the fresh water that flows into the Bay come from?

The Susquehanna River provides about 50% of the freshwater coming into the Bay - an average of 19 million gallons of water per minute.

What is an alternate way that water gets into the Bay (besides rivers, streams, ocean)?

Water also enters the Bay through underground waterways. Water that seeps into soil rather than draining into streams and rivers becomes part of the groundwater system leading into the Bay.

Describe the depth of the Bay.

The water in the Chesapeake Bay is surprisingly shallow. Although the Bay covers a large surface area, its average depth, including all tidal tributaries, is about 21 feet. In fact, a person who is six feet tall could wade through over 700,000 acres of the Bay and never get his or her hat wet. A few deep troughs running along much of the Bay’s length reach up to 174 feet in depth.

Describe the salinity in the Bay.

The Bay's salinity ranges from freshwater (0-0.5 parts per thousand or ppt) near the Susquehanna River to water of nearly oceanic salinity (30-35 ppt) at the Chesapeake's mouth.

How much surface area is in the Bay?

The square footage (surface area) of the Bay and its tidal tributaries is 125 billion square feet (or around 4,480 square miles).

How much shoreline around the Bay?

The Bay and its tidal tributaries have around 11,684 miles of shoreline (more than the entire West Coast).

How many different species live in the Chesapeake Bay?

The Bay supports more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals, including 348 species of finfish, 173 species of shellfish and over 2,700 plant species.

Describe the birds of the Bay.

The Chesapeake is home to 29 species of waterfowl and is a major resting ground along the Atlantic Migratory Bird Flyway. Every year, one million waterfowl winter in the Bay's basin.

How many people live in the Bay basin?

The Chesapeake is a commercial and recreational resource for the more than 15 million people who live in its basin.

How much seafood is produced in the Bay?

The Bay produces 500 million pounds of seafood per year.

What are two major ports in the Bay area?

The Bay has two of the five major North Atlantic ports in the United States (Baltimore and Hampton Roads).

The Bay was the first to ...

The Chesapeake was the first in the nation to be targeted for restoration as an integrated watershed and ecosystem.

What does everyone in the watershed live near?

Everyone in the watershed lives just a few minutes from one of the more than 100,000 streams and rivers that drain into the Bay. Each of these tributaries can be considered a pipeline from communities into the Bay and its rivers.

Who or what affects the Bay?

Everything we do on the land – including the use of automobiles, fertilizers, pesticides, toilets, water, and electricity - affects the streams, the rivers, and the Bay.

How will we restore the Bay?

To restore the Bay, everyone has to be concerned about what we do in our own communities, homes, and backyards.